83 - Empowering Educators: Amplifying Impact Through Resources and Advocacy with Alix Guerrier

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Alex Guerrier.

Did I get that right?

Guerrier.

Guerrier.

Alex Guerrier. I knew I'd get it right. Alex Guerrier, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the CEO of DonorsChoose, found at donorschoose.org. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to be with us.

Oh, it is a pleasure, and it's great to have this chance to talk to you.

Thank you. So tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Sure, I will. Uh, how in-depth should I go? Where should I start?

I always like to start at the beginning, but wherever you think things become interesting in your life.

Well, you know, I'll mention a little bit about my parents. My parents came from two different countries outside the US. My dad is Haitian from Haiti, hence my name, Alex Guerrier, also pronounced in Haiti, Alex Guerrier. It's actually a very Haitian name.

Okay.

And my mom was born and raised in Brazil, quite rural Brazil, I should note. And so my sister and I are first-generation Americans. I was born in the US in New York, grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, went to New Haven Public Schools, and went to college planning on being a physicist, but soon found myself sort of drawn to education. I, as I mentioned, I was a public school kid, New Haven Public Schools. I feel very loyal to New Haven. Awesome pizza, also challenges in, in the school system there. And then I went to a fancy college, Harvard, and found myself really unprepared for—

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna hold Harvard against you. I went to Dartmouth.

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Well, so you, you, you know, you know what it can be like maybe, uh, to arrive at a place and suddenly find yourself, um, really in quite a different world. And I had had a sense before, you know, the moment of sort of landing on campus in Cambridge, that there were differences that kids could have in different places in the country in terms of what they had in school. But I started to really feel it at that time. You know, classmates who had had access to all kinds of classes that I, you know, who had already had civics and government and all this stuff, you know, and AP classes and just a bunch of things that didn't exist and weren't available in the whole system in New Haven Public Schools. And so I found myself starting to gravitate towards thinking about education. I mean, so I did a number of things, but I also became, you know, after graduation, I was a classroom teacher in the Bay Area. For a number of years, I taught 6th grade math and science.

Out here in California?

Yep, yep. And high school math, I taught in Ravenswood. So that's East Palo Alto. Started through Teach for America and then continued. I taught in a charter school called Leadership High School, which was really an incredible school. I think continues to be an incredible school. I was a high school math teacher, which at some level, I still feel like I am a high school math teacher, even As a CEO, even as a parent, I spend a lot of time thinking about math. And then went on to do other things. I went to grad school, got an MBA, master's in ed, joined McKinsey, was a consultant in the social sector office, so working with school systems. In 2011, I co-founded an education technology company which developed math curriculum first and then other sorts of curricula. That company was acquired, is now called Imagine Learning and still serving kids and teachers to this day. I made a transition to nonprofit leadership. I led another giving platform called Global Giving, which supports charities around the world. You know, it was a deliberate attempt on my part to connect with this international part of my background. And I love, deeply love that organization, but then also had the chance to come back to the education sector here at DonorsChoose, where I'm currently CEO. And so I have spent the last year, I'm now in my sophomore year as CEO of DonorsChoose, just loving it and feeling the privilege of being in this role. Really every day.

Tell us about DonorsChoose.

DonorsChoose is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 by another classroom teacher. I'm the first non-founder to, to lead it, and the core idea is pretty simple. It is a platform where public school teachers from around the country, any public school teacher including charter schools, can come to DonorsChoose and request materials, resources that they would like to have in their classroom that they either can't afford— teachers spend a lot out of pocket to supply their classrooms— or that, you know, otherwise aren't available from the district. And then individual donors or larger corporate partners can fund these requests. Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, we don't send cash. Instead, we actually send those resources. To the teachers at the school, becomes part of, you know, school district property. And really, that's the core model, and we've grown that model. This year we'll raise about $150 million worth of materials for— Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, we feel proud about that number, and we're also trying to grow that number. So, um, to date we've done about $1.5 billion, maybe it's $1.4-something billion worth of resources for teachers around the country. Yeah. And we serve schools across the country. I think we last counted 87% of schools in the country have had at least one DonorsChoose project. And there are a lot that have had a lot more than that. But we're trying to get to every school, maybe every classroom.

Wow. And you're talking K through 12?

K through 12, yes. Pre-K through 12 as well.

Yeah. And so all that has to happen is the teacher has to know about DonorsChoose, make an application on the site. Yeah. And then when the money's available, I'm sure you have priorities on how you rank stuff. What the request is put in boxes and shipped out to the school site and the teacher gets it on an FedEx box and there it is.

Yeah, yeah. Amazon, it can come Amazon Prime the next day sometimes. And it's all available. You know, certainly I'll be encouraging the entire audience of this podcast and video to check out donorschoose.org. But yeah, you can go to any project and see exactly, you know, what was sent and notes between donors and teachers about what that project is.

So how many thousands of teachers have benefited from this? Or maybe it should be tens of thousands.

Yeah, no, it's hundreds of thousands today. Almost a million, I think, just shy of a million teachers. To date.

I mean, I looked at the website and I saw how big— I mean, you've got what, 70, 80 employees, people working for you?

We are now at about 170.

Okay.

Yeah, it's big.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we do all the, you know, all the fulfillment, the shipping. If, by the way, if there are returns or questions, we handle all of that, you know. If something goes out of stock, we will find, you know, a replacement or work with a teacher to find, you know, another suitable resource. We report on impact.

So yeah, what an amazing program, huh? So what gets you excited to get up in the morning every day and go to work? Oh, back at yours.

There are, there are a lot of things. I mean, you know, I can start, and there really are a lot of different components of the answer to that question. But I can give you a sense with just talking about one of the privileges that I have in this role, which is I get to go out and visit classrooms, and I get to go out and talk to teachers who, you know, are, are who we are serving. For example, just, you know, 2 days ago, I think I was in a classroom in the Bronx, and I emphasize Bronx, because I talked to the principal and she said, don't just talk about Fairmount Academy. If you ever mention us, make sure to say we are in the South Bronx. And, you know, she crossed her arms like this. So I'm living up to that obligation. Okay. Um, um, uh, so Monique, the— I, I, I'm, I'm fulfilling your request here of emphasizing it's the South Bronx. And she was— she's of that community, you know, she grew up in the South Bronx and, uh, was really proud of how she had had a pathway that was unconstrained by or broke through some of the resource constraints that she experienced and that her kids, that her students currently experience. But I had a chance to, you know, she has teachers in her building that are quite successful on DonorsChoose.. And yeah, I got to talk to those teachers and, and visit their classroom. And the feeling of going into the classroom and seeing, especially in an environment that again, you know, can be quite resource constrained, but seeing a beautiful, rich learning environment for kids, seeing kids thriving, working on stuff. So I'll give you a sense of what was in this particular classroom. She had done a bunch of requests related to Legos and she had Lego creations. I think this was a 3rd grade classroom, you know, decorating her, her, the walls. Also in that period, she was working on a nature and gardening lesson. She had 2 hydroponic sort of growing stations with grow lights. That were thriving. And in fact, she had— this teacher had started a practice at the school. And again, if you can imagine, this is an area, obviously it's an urban area. Kids have some access, but often limited access to real, you know, green space. But here the kids were working on growing these. They were diagramming the plants as I walked in. They had access to this green stuff. Not only that, they had actually started a practice of having— I forgot what they call it— but sort of garden, like, innovation days or salad innovation days where they would then harvest the cucumbers and the vegetables and then put together salads that were then delicious and healthy, and the kids were actually excited about eating. So I'm just describing this experience because what gets me gets me up every morning is the fact that we can play a role in bringing dreams like that, that teachers have of serving their kids to life. And, you know, it's almost unfair because I get to walk into the classroom and then the teachers have all this thanks and gratitude. Of course, I didn't, you know, I'm just the guy at the top of the website. The work is really being done by that teacher and by other folks on the team. But I'm happy to be a conduit for that gratitude and then share it with my team and then also convey how inspired we are to that teacher and say, thank you for doing your work.

I would imagine the people on your team are supremely thrilled to be doing what they're doing.

It's an amazing, amazing group of people, each one of them coming from different backgrounds, but each one of them Yeah, motivated by, by this goal.

Oh man, I mean, I kind of sense goosebumps up my back when I just can imagine walking into this classroom and it's completely decked out. Here's a teacher, a 3rd grade teacher, doing a science lesson with plants.

Yes.

And drawing, so there's art involved. I mean, it's just multidisciplinary, the way education really should be.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you guys are facilitating it because you can give her the supply she needs to to deliver that kind of educational experience. Amazing.

Yeah, that, that's our mission.

Wow, incredible. So what do you think it is unique that brings you—

that you—

what's unique about you that you bring to the table?

Oh, don't ask that question too loudly, otherwise, you know, people might start to question it. I see a lot of things myself, but I'm just curious. Well, I— yeah, I can share, um, you know, some, some of the factors, um, It's funny because in going through my career, I took a lot of seemingly random turns. Like, for example, I majored in physics, then I worked at an investment bank, but then became a classroom teacher after that. Then I went to grad school, then I was a consultant, then I did this edtech thing. But it turns out that actually many of those relate pretty directly to my role now. Obviously, the technology platform. The fact that I was a classroom teacher, the fact that even in my sort of detour out of education to global giving, that was a crowdfunding platform with a very similar model. So I think that all of those play a role, but then also, you know, just my identity as a public school kid. We have a focus at DonorsChoose on equity, racial equity and socioeconomic equity. So we serve all public schools. Again, we've actually served most public schools, and we aspire to increase that percentage. And on top of that, we also have a deliberate focus on equity. One of the ways that that focus is manifested is that if a school has a student population where two things are true, where over 50% of the kids are eligible for free or reduced lunch, and this is kind of a standard way of gauging income level, you know, across public education. So if over 50% of the kids are in that category and if over 50% of the students have traditionally underserved racial identity, so that is Black, Latino, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, if those two conditions are true in a school, then that's an equity-focused school. And we're a nonprofit, we have a board. Our board has actually designated that That's our top key performance indicator, that we serve all schools and we strive to disproportionately ensure that those schools get a disproportionate amount of funding. And those are the schools that I taught in, you know, the schools I taught in. Yeah, yeah, for sure, both. And actually all the schools that I went to as a kid. I mean, obviously we didn't have this designation, and this was before DonorsChoose. Existed, but at the time they would have been, and today they are, equity-focused schools. And so it has a, you know, particular meaning to me, but I also seek to bring that experience of being a student in those schools and sort of finding myself pushing against some of the constraints to my job here. Wow.

Yeah, I can— I mean, you are a unique individual. I mean, you've got your biracial background, your education in public schools in New Haven, and then your whole education, the culture shock of going to Harvard.

Yeah, yeah. I do have a degree from Harvard, but I can admit that it was hard fought and it almost didn't happen, I think by a couple of credits there.

Well, I know. I mean, I know. I mean, I was a California kid. And my culture shock was not because I came from a completely different world. I came from affluence and privilege. So it was more of an environmental shock going from Southern California to Northern New Hampshire.

Yeah. Oh, very different. Diametrically opposed in some kind of literal way there.

Pretty much.

That's pretty cool.

So this show is called Listening with Leaders because as a lawyer turned peacemaker, I am very interested in listening as, as a foundational skill of life. Tell me about the importance of listening in your career and in what you're doing now leading this amazing organization called DonorsChoose.

Yeah, um, maybe I'll talk about two different aspects of listening, but you know, uh, others may also come up. Um, one is when it comes to developing the product and the offering, um, I think I am still heavily influenced by my experience trying to bring a platform to life at the edtech startup that I co-founded with my co-founder, who also was a lifelong educator and a principal, and trying to develop a platform that was useful to teachers. For certain, the core activity that we did was to listen. I mean, ask questions, but then listen, observe, observe people using this platform. We were trying to put on useful, you know, free video lessons. And yeah, we spent most of our time trying to distill insights from what we collected through conversations and observations and classroom observations from the people that we were trying to serve. I mean, that was sort of most of what we did throughout that time. And that's also the case here, you know, where we have this platform that's working, it's serving teachers. But in terms of, you know, improving that platform, the ideas don't come from inside the building, right? As Steve Blank would say, like they come from out of the building. They're not gonna come about through a bunch of us holed up in a conference room in our New York office, you know, sort of being brilliant. You know, no insights are generated that way. It's only through having a real listening orientation towards our users and our stakeholders, 'cause we have, and we have many of them. So that's sort of one domain. But another thing comes to mind, you know, I have two daughters who are this year, this summer, going to turn 11 and 13. So at an age where they're curious about stuff and where stuff doesn't make sense, but also stuff makes sense. And, you know, sometimes they ask me like, "What is your job exactly? What do you do?" Surprisingly difficult question to answer. But one of the ways that I answer them is to say, well, I spend most of my time talking to people. I sort of spend half my time talking to people inside DonorStew's, inside the company, and then I spend half my time talking to people outside. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now, spending half my time talking to people outside. And, um, in each of those, that's most of my time. In fact, you know, like, I'm not sure that I really do any work, but I do a lot of talking or a lot of you know, conversation and definitely a lot of listening. For example, when I'm talking to folks inside DonorsChoose, again, I, you know, I'm talking to my soon-to-be 13-year-old about what it is to be a CEO, you know, and disabusing her of the idea that I'm telling people what to do, because really Most of what I'm doing is trying to be helpful. I'm trying to be helpful in what they want to do, and, you know, kind of having them tell me what they need from me. And again, most of that is listening. There's a particular kind of my usual starting question when I have a one-on-one with, well, with anybody on my team, either a direct reporter or somebody else. Is just like, "What's on your mind?" I like that question, "What's on your mind?" because it's quite open. I mean it literally, you know, "What's on your mind?" Sometimes, often it's related to, you know, the work, but often it's not. And I am listening for what is salient to that person at that time. I'm listening for, Usually I try to listen for sort of emotional signifiers. So if somebody has a bullet, you know, bulleted list of sort of here's some of the things, and then in one of those they use the word frustrated, or I'm really nervous about, or I was, you know, then I'll try to hone in on that and say, oh wait, hold on, let's just tell me a little bit more about that. You know, if there is a kind of an emotion attached to it, because often that will end up being the most important topic and probably the best way that we can spend—

It is the most important. Yeah, without exception.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we can find ourselves, you know, sort of in surprising areas, you know, where folks say, oh, I didn't— I wasn't expecting to talk about this today. But again, you know, you usually— you're glad that it came up.

That's right, you stumbled on something. And it's interesting, I, I probably do 4 or 5 of these podcasts every week, and I always ask the same question about listening, and it's rare to hear someone actually mention emotions as being a significant thing to listen for, because that's what I teach. Yeah, I teach that we listen for words, we listen for meaning, and most importantly, we listen for emotions and feelings. Yeah, because almost all, all of them all of the importance in what somebody says or what they're communicating is what their emotional experience is.

Yeah, that, that, that is what I— it's almost like a heat map, you know?

Exactly, exactly. And when you can learn how to listen to emotions, and to your point, you can either ask, well, tell me more about that, or what I teach is how to reflect emotions. Oh man, you're really frustrated. You're really pissed off. Because brain scanning studies show that when you listen to and reflect emotions with a you statement, it calms everything down. That's—

oh, interesting—

book, How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less. We just use the brain's architecture instead of trying to fight a person. We let their brains do the work for us.

And is it a kind of validation? Is that the sort of mechanism?

People end up feeling validated. But what happens is, what the brain scanning studies show is that when you affect label, tell somebody what they're feeling using a you statement, the emotional centers of the brain are inhibited while the right ventrolateral frontal cortex is activated. And they show this on the fMRI study.

Oh, really powerful.

And as a result, we can calm any angry person, or we can validate somebody, or we can make somebody feel deeply heard. So you create instant trust, loyalty, and engagement with any human being, or instant intimacy within 90 seconds. And you're doing it. So good job.

Oh, well, thanks. I, I now have a new book to, to put on my list.

De-escalate.

Yeah.

Calm an angry person in 90 seconds or less. And I'm just so pleased to hear that you're paying attention to emotions because we live in a culture where emotions are considered toxic.

Yeah.

And evil. And yet we're 98% emotional and only 2% rational. So we're denying our own humanity.

Exactly. We're just a bunch of people, you know, trying our best here.

That's right. So where do you see yourself going? You've been in this job for going on 2 years now, as you said. Sophomore CEO with— yeah, what's, what's— where's Alex going? What's, what's— you're pretty—

yeah, uh, still, yeah, you know, getting up there. I think, I think I, I just went to my, um, 25-year college reunion. So, uh, one of the panels at this reunion was Life at Midlife, about essentially about the, the, the impending midlife crises that, uh, all of us are going to have. It hasn't happened yet. So I expressed a bit about the incredible sense of privilege that I feel in this role. Our goal is to, well, let me put it this way. When I first joined, the board correctly told me, "Hey, this organization works. Please don't break anything." Actually, speaking of listening, they told me, "Can you please spend the first year listening because things are working?" You know, they did express, you know, gave some nice words to me, but they're like, "No, don't break anything. Just listen." So I tried to do that. Now I'm out of my probationary period. I can start to express some thoughts.

Weak knees here and there.

But they were right. I mean, this is an incredible organization. It's an incredible platform for really pushing hard against structural inequity. And the entire team is aligned about expanding our network of allies and our ability to work with other parts of the system, but with this goal of pushing hard against structural inequities.

Yeah, I think that's great.

Yeah, we're on our way to make sure that every classroom is like that classroom that I described, you know, where kids and teachers just have— yeah, just have what they want and are thriving and the kids are happy and learning, you know, and we're living up to their potential.

How do teachers find out about DonorsChoose?

Uh, often through word of mouth. We have ambassadors as well who are teachers who have been successful that we sort of deputized to share the word, but we're always looking to get more teachers, you know, on. So if any teachers are listening to this podcast and you haven't visited donorschoose.org, please do so.

All right, we've got our local— our local Little Mountain School District is a troubled place, so maybe I'll pass the word on to them.

Oh, please do. Yeah, please do. Absolutely.

One more question, I'll let you go. What is one thing about about you, Alex, that we would not know about unless you told us?

Oh, uh, or maybe unless you spent time with me, you know, uh, out of the role, uh, that I can be convinced to sing at the drop of a hat, you know, really, at the entirety of, uh, Rent memorized, you know, that was a pivotal musical for a person sort of of my age who was living in New York, you know, in the late '90s. So it sort of seared in my brain. Yeah. Wow.

Singer, huh? Do you do much singing?

Only in karaoke and now with my kids. In fact, I think we're going to watch Rent this weekend. That's fun.

That's fun. Good for you. Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been a great conversation.

I, I have enjoyed it, and I, I'm grateful to you for, for this chance to get to know you, learn about the book, and, and, uh, and have this conversation.

You're welcome.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.